The present invention is a diaper or incontinent pad in which certain nonabsorbing portions are apertured for ventilation and increased comfort to the wearer.
Considerable effort has been made in past years to increase the comfort of infant diapers or adult incontinent pads by making a wet product feel dryer to the wearer. This has principally been accomplished by the use of a relatively hydrophobic nonwoven fabric as the inner liner of the product. By maintaining the skin as dry as possible the growth of ammonia liberating bacteria on the skin can be reduced. In turn, this reduces irritation due to ammonia caused diaper rash. More recently, there has been a rapid appearance in the patent literature of diapers having moisture impermeable but vapor permeable backing sheets. While this construction does not reduce wetness, it does give ventilation which effects some reduction in bacterially generated ammonia. Patents to Motomura, U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,128 and Wilson et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,170 may be taken as exemplary U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,207 to Buell shows a diaper with a ventilated leg cuff that may alternatively also have a breathable back sheet. Up to this time the so-called breathable back sheet material is relatively expensive and has not appeared on the market to any great extent. The ultimate success and effectiveness of a product using a breathable back sheet is to this point largely unknown.
The above references all pertain to diapers for infants. However, the problem of irritation can be much more serious where the wearer is an incontinent adult, especially a bedridden incontinent adult. Adult incontinent pads generally have a long and relatively narrow rectangular absorbent pad located along the longitudinal axis. A pad enclosing envelope of nonwoven material and moisture impervious backing film typically has relatively wide wing-like extensions at each end to serve as a waistband. These wings also form the sides of the garment. Irritation under these areas can be particularly severe due to the fact that there is a moisture and vapor impervious film held tightly against the skin.
As one answer to the above problem, some adult incontinent garments have been made without the waistband "wings". Instead, a relatively long attachment strap having adhesive ends has been substituted. This leaves the side of the wearer almost completely open. an example of a pad of this type is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,670,012 to Johnson. While pads of this type have found some commercial acceptance, they are not without their own problems. Leakage in particular is more difficult to control. While not related to the functional aspects of the incontinent pad itself, attendants in nursing homes have complained that the adhesive ends of the long attachment straps tend to get stuck to bedding before they can be positioned in place.
It would be desirable to have a diaper, and especially an adult incontinent pad, having the wing-type construction which was well ventilated but did not incur the expense of using presently available vapor permeable backing films. The present invention appears to admirably fill that need.